Table 9 Summary of recommendations from the leadership and governance results

• Advocacy on the role of rehabilitation professionals [8, 51, 52]

• Rehabilitation professionals and community health workers should be involved in drafting of disaster response plans [8, 51, 52]

• Government policy makers should be involved in formulating rehabilitation disaster plans to ensure integration of rehabilitation into overall disaster response [51, 52]

• Acute trauma rehabilitation should be incorporated into undergraduate rehabilitation courses, with a particular focus on spinal injuries and amputees, triaging of patients, first aid, and; application of plaster casts [8, 52]

• Each organisation should be given extensive pre and post disaster tasks to avoiding misunderstandings and improve coordination [51, 52]

• A system should be developed to evaluate the implementation any rehabilitation plan, using valid and reliable indicators [51]

• Early establishment of a rehabilitation subcluster to support disaster response [8]

• General systems strengthening is imperative [8]

• Allocation of funds for disaster training [52]